"stupid tax"

So today was our first full day in China. We woke early because we are still on east coast time, but we made use of the time, skyping the boys and getting breakfast early. Our breakfast buffet was so yummy and interesting I decided to take a picture. This is when I noticed that the battery was not in my camera. We soon discovered that not only was it not in my camera but it was actually still in Delmont plugged in on the kitchen island where I plugged it in Tuesday night. Oops. So, since we had no plans till 3 today, we decided to go find another battery. We walked around Beijing for nearly 2 hours looking for a market we never found and decided to get a taxi to take us to a tech market we had been told about. Well, we chose the wrong taxi driver, and he charged us ten times what he should have . Then we paid too much for a charger and battery. Approximately one hundred dollars later we are wiser in the ways of Beijing taxi hailing and fully equipped with our camera gear. We have paid our "stupid tax" for the day and hopefully for the trip. In case you are unfamiliar with the term, it just means that you were stupid and it ended up costing you money. That was us today!



We did finally make it to the Temple of Heaven, which is a very old temple compound here in Beijing. We took many pictures. Hope to be able to post some pictures here with the camera equipment that I remembered, the iPad/sd card converter. We also saw an awesome acrobatic show this evening. Those were some crazy flexible people.

I think all of us are getting antsy to meet our kids. It has been nice getting to know some of the other families , but I am ready to be done here and meet Grace. We bought a jet lag liquid formula and it must be working because even after our really busy day we feel pretty good. Tomorrow is the Great Wall of China. Should be awesome.

Love to all.

 2 more days till Grace.